Time Travel? Other Universe?

There is a debate among fandom of whether Abrams Trek is time travel or just another universe. This is something I've been musing about off on for a number of years since the first reboot movie came out. I think I might have an answer I wish to present to you.

But first, let's take a look at the grandfather paradox. It's the prime example used by science when they explore the difficulties of actual time travel. It goes like this:

The time traveler goes back in time and kills his grandfather before his grandfather meets his grandmother. As a result, the time traveler is never born. But, if he was never born, then he is unable to travel through time and kill his grandfather, which means the traveler would then be born after all, and so on.

So, I think I may have an answer, although I think it has the possibility of breaking Occam's razor, which states that one must not multiply entities unnecessarily.

First, I have come to speculate that the basic argument is actually a false dichotomy, because it presents only two solutions. For the most part, I like to seek out more than just two solutions and sometimes I will find that there really are more than just an either or solution.

And this is the solution I have come up with. It is inspired by the grandfather paradox.

Time travel is dimension travel.

That is how the traveler still exists. He is not actually in his starting point dimension (for lack of a better term), he has arrived in another dimension.

So here's how this might break Occam's razor, because I don't know what the mechanics are that would cause him to have come to this other dimension.

I don't know if this is the real answer or not, but it seems to me that it does present the solution to the problem.

And I think it does fit the problem.

But, in all fairness, I have no idea how to test this out to see if it is the real scientific solution to the problem.

 

It's the same universe, just a different timeline. Those are not the same thing - a timeline is not a universe.

The grandfather paradox would create the same result as these films do: a new timeline that branches off from the old (and does not replace or overwrite it). That's all this is. There is no paradox, and never was.

 

Time travel exists because it's fiction.

 

There is?

It's made pretty clear in the first film that it takes place in a reality created by Nero and Spock traveling back to the year of Kirk's birth. So both time travel and an alternate universe are involved.

 

OP was probably at the refreshment stand during that scene.

 

There's actually a fair amount of people who appear to have slept through that scene, actually (for those late to the party, it's the very scene that USES THE TERM "alternate reality"). Maybe because it was too talky and not enough pewpew?

 

All of this is about to be rendered moot, anyway - is it not? - as the next movie, as I understand it, is going to restore the timeline and ... and so forth.

 

Source?!?

 

I think this was one of the things Para Mobius and Leslie E. Owen were claiming on their Facebook group a few months ago. They also claimed a new TV series was to be announced January 1, then January 30, then people stopped listening.

 

The idea that the third movie will restore the timeline is popular among those who believe that since it will be the third movie, it will end the trilogy. So, it must wrap up the storyline, and that means restoring the timeline. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest this is indeed so.

This is why they shouldn't have gone the alternate timeline route. There are those who are going to expect the reset button be pushed, restoring the timeline. That is typically how alternate timeline stories end.

 

Because some people are stupid?

 

On the other hand, like the James Bond films, the ending could be left open ended.

Leaving the possibility of a sequel.

 

Exactly.

 

I doubt it's a significant number. Probably a number with a leading 0.

 

Which are the worse kind.

 

It's just another movie.

 

There's nothing to restore, since the original timeline still exists.

 

I know that. But there are several people who insist otherwise.

 

Perhaps they should rewatch the movie and pay attention this time.

 

I dunno, that's asking too much.

...hang on, isn't a lot of the whining that goes on about NuTrek actually BECAUSE the creators are supposedly "pandering to the lowest common denominator"...ya can't get much lower than stupid!